THRILLERS

BURIED SECRETS BY JOSEPH FINDER (Headline £19.99)

Maverick private spy Nick Heller made his debut as the man who finds out the secrets that powerful people want to hide in Finder’s excellent thriller Vanished last year, and this second appearance is even better than the first.

Heller has moved back to his home town of Boston and set up his own office when he’s begged for help by an old family friend, hedge fund billionaire Marshall Marcus.

Marcus, who once employed Heller’s mother as a personal assistant, wants the investigator to search for his missing daughter Alexa.

A headstrong, rebellious 17-year-old, she’s gone missing after a night out. Heller’s search rapidly turns into a kidnapping investigation, for Alexa has been abducted by professionals who have buried her alive in an underground coffin - not unlike the Quentin Tarantino episodes of CSI when Nick Stokes was buried - with a video link to the internet streaming her desperate cries for help.

This is edge-of-the-seat, pulse-racing storytelling with a whiplash finish that leaves you gasping for more: quite excellent.

RIZZO’S FIRE BY LOU MANFREDO (Corvus £17.99)

Another second in a series, this time about veteran New York City cop, Joe Rizzo. Richly confirming the extraordinary promise of the first book, the follow up has style and authenticity, giving a no nonsense depiction of what life is like on the streets for a New York detective.

But this time Manfredo adds yet more subtlety to his portrait of the city’s finest. It shows a cop with 26 years on the job losing respect for his profession.

A man is found dead in his apartment after ten days and he’s had no visitors. So who strangled him and then made tea in his kitchen wearing his pyjamas?

It’s a mystery about a forgotten man, but it’s more than that for it explores whether the NYPD’s top brass are truly interested in such small crimes - not least, after the murder of a big Broadway producer comes along.

This is Ed McBain for the 21st century - and that’s high praise - with the Byzantine workings of the police department at the heart of the story.

It confirms Manfredo’s as one of New York’s finest thriller writers.

THE SECRET SOLDIER BY ALEX BERENSON (Headline £12.99)

New York Times writer Berenson has made a name for himself as an investigative reporter with exceptional skill, but he’s turned to thrillers and has created ex-CIA agent John Wells who provides Governments around the world with an ‘unofficial’ option when it comes to solving their problems.

This time Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulla fears he is losing control of his family and his people, and calls on Wells to help.

The novel displays Berenson’s particular knack for the up-to-the minute as it opens with a jihad attack in Bahrain designed to destabilise the regime - followed by a series of terrorist attacks throughout the Gulf with a similar objective. Sounds familiar? Certainly, and this is an espionage thriller that reeks with inside knowledge and insight as Wells discovers that the plotters actually want to initiate a Holy War between Islam and the United States. Written in a spare, taut style and with a real grasp of contemporary geopolitics it’s one of those thrillers that might be true.